Guv, meet the judge

What pests some judges can be.

You set out to eliminate pre-school programs, cripple a union, raise college tuitions or dishonor a trailblazing political figure, and one of these unelected jurists obstructs your endeavors to ruin…er, serve…your state.

So far, our favorite cheesy governor (from a literally cheesy state) was stopped dead in his tracks by a judge’s order; another judge assailed school cuts by the Republicans’ Great White Hope, quite literally; lawsuits were filed against two other governors; and the lone Democratic governor among them might be answerable to legal issues over school funding.

Five governors so far…and counting.

It is no surprise that the policies aggressively pushed by these governors are headed for court. Wisconsin’s Senate possibly violated the state’s open meetings laws; courts in New York and New Jersey previously ordered those states to cough up adequate funds for poor school districts; and the governors of Maine and Florida proved themselves to be reckless from the outset.

One had to wonder if some of these new governors and/or their states’ legislatures have been flouting the law. Are other state governments headed for court?

In Wisconsin, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi expended three separate days of hearings telling Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his associates in the legislature that their bill to curb collective bargaining and other union practices could not be implemented because the Senate violated the state’s open meetings law when it passed the bill; Madison is part of Dane County‘s jurisdiction.

Sumi must have been boiling inside when she said from the bench on March 29, 2011: “Now that I’ve made my earlier order as clear as it possibly can be, I must state that those who act in open and willful defiance of the court order place not only themselves at peril of sanctions, they also jeopardize the financial and governmental stability of the state of Wisconsin…Apparently that language was either misunderstood or ignored, but what I said was, ‘the further implementation of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 is enjoined.’ That’s what I now want to make crystal clear.” Wisconsin State Journal.

Sumi issued a temporary restraining order against implementation of the law on March 18, but the state government initiated the process for hiking employees’ health insurance premiums and retirement contributions as well as ending automatic collection of union dues, The Wisconsin State Journal reported.

The hearings before Sumi were triggered by a March 9 vote of a legislative conference committee - both chambers are controlled by Republicans - to severely limit collective bargaining and other union practices. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozane filed a lawsuit on grounds that the legislature failed to provide 24 hours’ notice before the initial vote on the legislation was taken.

After Sumi threatened to impose sanctions, Walker backed off implementing the law.

Back east, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and the legislature could soon be ordered by the state Supreme Court to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to the schools.

A Superior Court judge appointed by the Supreme Court stated in a report on March 22, 2011, that reductions in school funding violated the state constitution’s mandate to provide “a thorough and efficient” school system and particularly impacted impoverished districts, according to The New York Times.

Christie slashed $475 million from an $11 billion budget that was already in place, soon after he took office in 2010. Christie and the legislature subsequently cut that aid by $820 million from the previous year, or 8 percent, for the 2010-11 fiscal year that started July 1. No money was allocated to the wealthier districts, and Christie proposed a $250 million hike for the 2011-12 fiscal year.

Judge Peter E. Doyne was named by the court as a special master to determine if the aid allocations in 2010 satisfied the requirements set by previous court rulings, the Times reported. His appointment stems from the case of Abbott v. Burke in which the Supreme Court in 1985 ruled that education in poor districts was substandard under the constitution. The court ordered the state to increase its funding.

The court could again order the state to provide more funds for education.

“It is clear the state has failed to carry its burden,” Doyne wrote. “Despite the state’s best efforts, the reductions fell more heavily upon our high-risk districts and the children educated within those districts. The aid reductions have moved many districts further away from adequacy.”

Michael Drewniak, Christie’s press secretary, replied, “The Supreme Court should at last abandon the failed assumption of the last three decades that more money equals better education and stop treating our state’s fiscal condition as an inconvenient afterthought.”

David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that if the Supreme Court accepts Doyne’s report then the law center will seek full future financing.

Law professor Michael Rebell warned New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature that they will violate the state constitution if they enact $1.5 billion in proposed school aid reductions. The legislature subsequently cut aid to education, though less than originally planned. Cuomo is the only Democrat among these governors.

In an op-ed in The New York Daily News on March 17, 2011, Rebell recounted that in 2007 he served as attorney for the plaintiff in “a precedent-setting case” to provide school funding for needy districts.

Rebell wrote, “The state’s highest court ruled that the existing system for financing public education was unconstitutional - and in response, the Legislature adopted far-reaching reforms to ensure all students their constitutional right to ‘the opportunity for a sound basic education.’”

He noted that the legislature “promised schools in New York City and (other) high-need districts” $5.5 billion more in basic funding to be phased in over four years. “The promised increases have been stalled,” he continued. “If Cuomo’s proposed $1.5 billion cuts are enacted, virtually all of the state aid funding gains that New York City and other high-need districts have achieved since 2007 will be wiped out. Should this budget proposal be adopted, the state clearly will be violating its Constitution.

“Constitutional rights are a permanent affirmative obligation of the government; they cannot be put on hold because there is a recession or a budget deficit. As the U.S. Supreme Court clearly put it in 1992, ‘Financial constraints may not be used to justify the creation or perpetuation of constitutional violations.’”

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has already been sued twice and could face more legal challenges, according to The Miami Herald. Rosalie Whiley of Miami filed a petition in state Supreme Court for Scott signing an executive order less than an hour after he was inaugurated on Jan. 4 to freeze up to 900 new rules.

Whiley, who is blind, claims one of the stalled rules will facilitate her ability to apply for food stamps online. She said she must reapply for food stamps every six months, and wants Scott’s executive order revoked.

“Because of my visual handicap, I have to get someone to come in and put in information for me online,” she said. “I’m really concerned. He’s coming in and he’s disrupting a lot of things that are going to affect a lot of people. A lot of people.”

Sandy d’Alemberte, one of Whiley’s attorneys, said that agency heads - not the governor - are authorized to make rules, according to the Herald. “He has no authority to do that,” he said. “The Legislature gives rule-making authority to those agencies, not the governor.”

Earlier, two state senators from both sides of the aisle sued over the governor’s decision to turn down federal money for high-speed rail, though that suit was rejected by the court, the Herald reported.

Scott has also been assailed for signing an executive order to compel drug testing for many current state employees and job applicants, but attorneys and legal scholars said federal courts have usually ruled that such policies violate the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches, according to the Herald.

Three artists, a labor leader, an attorney and an industrial hygienist filed a lawsuit on April 1, 2011, asking the U.S. District Court in Portland, Me., to force Maine Gov. Paul LePage to reveal the site of a controversial mural, ensure that it is sufficiently preserved and protected and return it to the lobby of the Department of Labor in Augusta, according to The Portland Press Herald.

“The governor is trying to erase the working history of the people of Maine,” said Jeffrey Young, attorney for the six plaintiffs. “We’re trying to preserve and protect the rights of the people of Maine. We don’t need the governor telling us what we should or shouldn’t know about.”

LePage ordered the mural removed a week prior to the lawsuit filing, claiming that he heard complaints from some business owners who believed that the mural is hostile to employers. The 36-foot-long mural depicts scenes out of Maine labor history including a 1937 shoe factory strike in Lewiston-Auburn and Rosie the Riveter at Bath Iron Works.

Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s entire administration and the first female presidential Cabinet member ever, is depicted in one mural meeting with women and children she had helped through support of more humane labor laws.

The governor, who has already enraged Mainers over more substantial issues, touched off a storm of outrage almost immediately after he announced that the mural would be removed.

Now six Mainers have made a federal case out of it. Worth all this trouble, guv?